Diseases of uncontrolled cellular proliferation, including cancer, can affect people of all ages, including fetuses. Cancer alone is thought to be responsible for approximately 13% of all deaths worldwide. During 2007, about 7.8 million people died of cancer. The production of cancer cells can be caused by various genetic abnormalities, with risk factors including errors in cell replication, exposure to carcinogens, such as radiation, chemicals, or infectious agents. Cancer cells are typically characterized by hyperactive growth and division, protection against programmed cell death, loss of respect for normal tissue boundaries, and the ability to thrive in a diverse range of tissues. Although cancer research remains a burgeoning area of basic and clinical research, there still to date no cure for cancer.
Chemotherapeutic agents and radiation, which cause mutations in actively dividing cells, are intended to selectively kill the cancer cells while not effecting normal cells. Unfortunately, these cytotoxic agents, while effective in managing several types of cancer, are limited in their utility due to adverse side effects and lack of specificity for cancer cells. Advancement in the understanding of cell biology and cancer has led to the advent of new more selective treatments providing hope for cancer patients.
With the development of chemotherapy, survival and recovery rates of cancer patients have improved. However, anticancer agents are problematic in terms of being highly toxic and thus severely damaging to normal cells. To overcome such a side effect of anticancer agents, many recent studies have focused on developing alternative anticancer substances capable of specifically suppressing proliferation of tumor cells.
Unfortunately, however, due to the prevalence of many different types of cancers and due to the complexity of cancers, there still remains a need to develop new anti-cancer therapeutics, including the development of compounds displaying anticancer activity.